Excerpt from The Agriculture of Cuba As one of our nearest foreign neighbors, Cuba is located in a strategic position for the defense of the United States. It lies squarely across the entrance to the entire Gulf of Mexico, whose waters wash the shores of five of the Southern States, and it lies across the northern approach to the Caribbean Sea and the Panama Canal. Not only are good will and close cooperation between Cuba and the United States vital for defense, but Cuba is also the most important of all the Latin American countries from the standpoint of the volume of trade with the United States, particularly in agricultural products. During recent years, 1936 - 40, the total trade with Cuba averaged about 200 million dollars annually and constituted about one-fifth Of the total United States trade with all the 20 Latin American countries. The extent to which Cuba depends upon the United States is indicated by the fact that more than three-fourths of Cuba's total exports during recent years have been to the United States and, in turn, Cuba has obtained more than two-thirds of its imports from this country. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.